Circle of Life
by BethSHeartbeat
Summary: Greta Miller walks away from lunch with Zoe and Max, but things take a dramatic turn for the worst. This is an alternate end to 25.07.15 and was written before I saw the episode as I was away.


Greta Miller stormed off from lunch soon after Zoe had left and after Max had shouted at her for her treatment of Zoe. She had not been happy about her son's choice of partner or the way her son had spoken to her. That's why she was now well on her way towards being very drunk as she tried to navigate her way to her step-daughter, Robyn's house. All the roads were beginning to look the same as she stumbled down roads lined with houses. It was then that she realised that despite having Robyn's address, she had never visited before and therefore had little idea of where she was going.

The amount of alcohol she'd consumed was now having a significant impact upon her thought process. Deep down she regretted how she'd spoken to Zoe, but it wasn't enough to do anything about it, something stopped her from picking up the phone. Maybe it was Max's comment that he was better off without her and that he never wanted to see her again, or perhaps it was the stubbornness that didn't seemed to have been passed to Max. She thought about ringing Robyn but guessed that by now she'd have known all about the events of lunch, no, for now she was on her own.

After a while she came across Holby town centre, it was small but had lots of cars speeding round. Parents walked around with their children as they enjoyed their Saturday afternoon, however many seemed to stare at her. All she wanted was to get to Robyn's, or failing that, Max's, and sleep off the worst of the inevitable hangover. A sign post had directions on it to the hospital and knowing that Robyn, Max and Zoe all worked there, it seemed like a good place to start. Had she been sober then getting a taxi would have been the best option, but in her state it hadn't even crossed her mind.

Thoughts of Max as a child and then the Max she faced hours earlier flew around her head. It was clear to her that Max was happy and very much in love and despite Zoe's nerves it was clear that she too was very much in love. The thoughts whizzed around in her head as she stepped out into the road, having paid no attention to the oncoming lorry.

Numbness spread through her body as she lay in the centre of the road. Around her all she could hear was silence, she felt overwhelmingly tired but refused to close her eyes despite the sun becoming increasingly bright. Her eyes began to flutter as she desperately fought to keep them open, numbness seeped out of her body and was replaced by unbearable pain which overtook her body. Greta couldn't cry out, she couldn't move nor make a sound.

A crowd of onlookers appeared around her, several took off their coats and jumpers to cover the injured middle aged woman. The garments succeeded in keeping Greta warm and masked the volume of blood on the road from any passing children, as she waited for an ambulance to arrive. With every second they waited, the already slim chance of survival seemed to further decline as blood loss increased.

"This is Greta Miller, 48, was hit by a lorry at approximately 45mph. GCS of 7, BP is 80/30 and pulse is 143. Suspected spinal fracture and internal bleeding." Dixie explained as Greta was brought into Holby ED less than half an hour after she'd been hit, Connie and Rita had been in reception awaiting the emergency so rushed straight through to resus with her.

"Okay, Cal take primary survey. Lofty I need 6 units of blood and get on the phone to theatre because I can't see her being down here too long." Connie ordered, only to be interrupted by the beeping of the heart monitor. Rita stood beside the bed and tried CPR to get the cheeky porter's mother back into a normal heart rhythm.

"There's too much pressure on the heart." Rita called to the former cardio surgeon.

"I think we're looking at open heart surgery, what have theatre said Lofty?" Connie asked, having looked at Greta and then up towards the clock.

"They'll all be tied up for the next four hours." Lofty called back.

"Stress that it's an emergency, this woman is going to die unless she has surgery."

"There's nothing they can do." Lofty replied having relayed Connie's message to the person on the other end of the phone.

"That's not good enough. I'll do it myself, prep for surgery." The clinical lead ordered.

"I'm in, this is worse than I was expecting." Connie said as one of the veins was completely damaged and blood was spilling everywhere. She tried to suture the rip in the vein but what was needed was a transplant. "Okay, that's all we can do down here, we need to get her up now."

"The cardio surgeons are still tied up in an emergency, they said another couple of hours at least."

"Okay, well she's stable for now but if she goes down again then there's very little we can do."

It was twenty minutes before the machine sprung back into life and despite every attempt to save her, at 5:22pm it was decided that Greta Miller was dead.

"I got a call to say my mother was here." Max said to Rita who walked past. Zoe, who was stood behind Max but had her hand in his, saw the blood down Rita's scrubs and instantly knew it was bad.

"What's her name?" Rita asked, already knowing where the the conversation was going.

"Greta Miller." Max replied, worry evident in his voice.

"Let's go through to my office Max, and Rita can get someone to come and speak to us." Zoe interrupted, in this Max was her main priority, they'd just gotten engaged, they'd just gotten over what Greta had said but she could tell it was going to be more bad news coming their way.

"Max. Zoe." Connie greeted as she entered Zoe's office. "I'm sorry Max but I'm afraid your mother didn't make it. We did everything we could, unfortunately a big heart attack and as her heart was damaged in the crash, it couldn't take it. Again, I'm sorry for your loss." Connie explained as Max fell into Zoe's arms.

"Max, I'm so sorry." Zoe tried to soothe him once they were on their own in her office.

"Can we go home?" Max asked softly. "We need to properly celebrate our engagement." He told her, the news having not sunk in.

"Max you just lost your mother, you aren't thinking straight."

"I know we did but I'd rather deal with that tomorrow, today is the day we got engaged and I'd rather focus on that than the bad news." Max explained, wanting to ignore the events of the last half an hour, to forget it had happened. He knew that eventually he'd have to deal with it but not at that moment.


End file.
